SYDNEY (AP) – Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott laid flowers Tuesday at a makeshift memorial in Sydney for the victims of a central city cafe siege that left three people dead.
Abbott wrote a message and waved to the crowd as he laid a bouquet of white flowers at the memorial in Martin Place, the plaza in central Sydney where the drama took place. His wife, Margie, laid another bouquet of red flowers.
From early Tuesday, a steady stream of tearful people placed bouquets at the memorial outside of the Lindt Chocolat Cafe, where the gunman took 17 hostages a day earlier. The siege ended 16 hours later in a barrage of gunfire that left two hostages and the Iranian-born gunman dead, and a nation that has long prided itself on its peace rocked to its core.
As the standoff that started around 9:45 a.m. stretched through the day into nightfall with no apparent solution in sight, police stormed the cafe around 2 a.m. Tuesday when they heard gunfire inside, said New South Wales state police Commissioner Andrew Scipione.
“They made the call because they believed that at that time, if they didn’t enter, there would have been many more lives lost,” Scipione said.